I occasionally start small projects for friends or family. I intentionally use technology I have not used before in order to learn new things. The client gets something, I learn something new. It's nice also, because it forces me to finish the projects. Last year, I started writing a small application using the Adobe Flex SDK, (version 4, even though it was just beta when I started). The app simply streams audio and flips slide images, a Flex/AS3 component, or a customizable automatically-generated questionnaire/quiz at defined timestamps. All of this is configured through a reasonably small XML file, all via the network.

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